March 12 Tags of 2012

Talk about crafting down to the wire!! lol! I have made a little bit of a goal with myself since Tim Holtz started his 12 tags of 2012, and that is I want to make the tag of the month in the actual month. Otherwise I know myself and I'll say that I'll catch up, but I know I won't...I haven't even finished putting together my December daily album from this year or last year! So, I am challenging myself to get it done! So here it's 12:34 am on March 31st...it's still March right?! I just finished my tag and I wanted to get it posted here right away!! 

As soon as I saw Tim's tag this month, I knew I wanted to use the umbrella man! I don't own this die, but it's definitely on my wish list. I borrowed him from Tara @ Creative Accents. Thanks Tara!! This guy needs to be in my stash though! I LOVE this technique, but holy man it takes some serious time and patience! But it's totally worth the effort at the end. SOOOO fun! 

Here's Tim's Tag:

And here's my version: (Sorry about the bad pics....no natural light when you're taking the photos at midnight!)

I didn't have the cement embossing powder that he used, but I did have the antique linen distress embossing powder and I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. I think Pumice Stone would've been pretty close to the cement stuff, but I didn't have it, so this is the next best thing :)

So there you have it. I hope you like it as much as I do. Trust me the picture really does not do it justice. The only regret is that I don't have Tim's fabulous wood grain stamp as mine is just not living up to the same standards...hmmm...another thing for my wish list! lol 

Happy Crafting everyone! I'm going to bed :)

Frosted Designs Recycle/Upcycle

Hello all you crafty peeps! I hope you're having a wonderful Friday! It's time for another challenge over at Frosted Designs, and this week we want you to be earth friendly and Recycle or Upcycle some goodies onto your layouts, cards or projects! Sounds like fun eh?! 

This layout is definitely not my favourite and it was one that took waaaay too long to make too. You know those ones where you could just pick at it forever and still not be completely happy with it? Well at 1am, I finally just said forget it and let it be. It's growing on me, but it's still not my favourite. Can't win em all can we?! lol

You can't see the title very well in this picture, but it says "When did 30 happen?!" then I hand journalled: "Wasn't I just 16 a few days ago?!"

I always keep my packaging from the dies that I buy because the Sizzix Bigz dies can cut them, and that's what I Upcycled for my layout. I cut the Tim Holtz/Sizzix butterflies dies out of acetate packaging then coloured them with Adirondak Alcohol Inks.

If you didn't guess it from the title, the pictures are from my 30th birthday party. My little sister Jayden made and decorated the cake for my party. Isn't it a fabulous cake?! The only problem with a cake that has such bright colours though, is that the icing tastes a little bit like chemicals from the food colouring. But it sure looked awesome, and the cake itself tasted delish!

I used another fab sketch from the Boys Rule Scrapbook Kits Blog.

Well there you have it! Go through your house and find some goodies to craft with! There's a ton of household things that you can use for getting crafty! Link it up at Frosted Designs for a chance to win some goodies from Karla's Kreative Korner!

Boys Rule!

Hi bloggers! Just a quick post tonight, because my kids gave me Pink Eye and it kinda hurts like CRAZY!! Anyway, last night I whipped off this layout based on a sketch over at the Boys Rule Scrapbook Kits Blog.  And the blog kind of inspired my title! Ethan always says "Boys Rule, Girls Drool" so I thought this title was fitting for the layout of "The Ethans". This layout literally took me like an hour from picking the paper to actually finishing! I don't think I've ever done a layout this quickly! 

Anyway, here's the sketch: 

And here's my layout:

And some close ups:

I've had this Heidi Swapp handwriting Alphabet for like 2 years and haven't used it and I must say I think it's my new fav!! 

Anyway, I'm off to put a cold cloth on my gross eye! lol

Have a good night!!

Scrap the Boys-Life is Good

Good Evening Bloggers! The weather here was FABULOUS today and we spent the afternoon at the park with the boys. It was a great day to be outside!! I'm loving that spring is here finally and I'm totally getting the spring cleaning bug!! Now everyone in my house has to worry about me throwing EVERYTHING away!! lol Except my craft supplies that is!! 

I wanted to show you this layout I did that was inspired by the challenge over at Scrap the Boys. They want you to use Red in your layout, use the title "Life is Good" and use handwritten journaling. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, and I must say that I do like that little pop of red!

I used some goodies that I won from Boys Rule Scrapbooking Kits, and I have to say that Laura-Lee from Boys Rule, is Amazing!! I won a little kit with those wooden stars, and the twine I used, and it also had a few other wooden goodies and some smash products and twine and stick pins. Then when it came in the mail it was like Christmas because she had thrown in a whole bunch of other goodies because the shipping cost was almost the same! Thanks Laura-Lee!! You totally made my day!! And to top it all off, it was all stuff that I will TOTALLY use!! I checked out her site, and her kits are AMAZING! I love every one of them! I'm thinking it might be time to start subscribing to my first monthly kit club! 

I used a piece of canvas and hand cut it into a little flag to put the word "is" on, otherwise it was getting lost in the polka dots, but I'm pretty happy with how the title turned out. The "Is" and "Good" were die cut with more Tim Holtz/Sizzix dies. and the little tags on top of the title are from my Smash book goodies. 

The background paper is MME Kraft Fun Day (freebie from Boys Rule)

I die cut a cardboard box with the Edge Brackets from Tim Holtz/Sizzix and then I die cut it again with a scrap piece of paper. Actually, aside from the background paper, all of the paper I used came from my scraps :) Gotta love it when you finally start using those up!

I'm finally starting to get some of these old pictures scrapped! Ethan was only 3 in this picture and Caleb was just born! Now Caleb is 3 already! Where does the time go?! Kinda makes me a little sad that my babies are growing up and Ethan is sitting beside me right now playing "Plants Vs. Zombies" on his DS. He's that old already! yikes!!

Well, I hope you like what you see and have a crafty weekend!!

Happy Birthday Jayden - Graphicat Sketch

Well I'm late again for the new Graphicat Sketch!! I was up until almost 2am last night getting the card done only to have technical difficulties with my printer and I couldn't get the sentiment printed!! Luckily tonight I somehow got it to work so I managed to finish it up! Gotta love technology sometimes ;)

Here's the sketch...Isn't it fab?! 

My little sister Jayden is turning 13 tomorrow (well, I guess it's today now, since it's after midnight!), so I made this card for her. I can't believe she's already 13! It's funny because I remember when she was born (I was 17) and I used to say "oh man, when she's 13, I'm gonna be 30!!" lol It's funny how when you're 17, you think 30 is so old ;)

The pictures aren't that great, sorry...It's hard to get a good shot without any natural light.

I tried to get a better one of the sentiment (which is a new one over at Graphicat Designs) In case you can't read it, it says "When We Are Together We Are Way COOLER Than Everyone Else!" I thought these dress forms all dressed up would go pretty good with the sentiment, since they look pretty "cool" lol

You've got until April 1st to play along with us at Graphicat Sketches and one winner will get the "I like it dirty" clear polymer stamp!

So go get sketchy!!

I'm entering this card into the following challenges:

Frosted Designs: "Things with Wings"

Cute Card Thursday-Happy Birthday 

Basic Grey Challenges: Mother's Day/Girlie (I used BG's Out of Print" Paper)

Scrap Fit: Splattering or Dripping something

Scrapbookers Anonymous: "H" Challenge (Happy Birthday stamp)

Creative Card Crew: Vintage

Bunny Zoe: Shabby/Vintage

Charisma Cardz: Alter It

Frosted Designs and Seriously Creative Challenges

Well hello there Bloggers!! It's time for another Fabulous Friday Challenge over at Frosted Designs and this time we wanna see "Things With Wings". All ya gotta do is create a project that has something to do with "wings" and you'll have a chance to win a fab prize from The Prairie Bird Boutique!

I also made this fun tag for the challenge over at Creative Accents Challenges. It's a photo inspiration challenge:

So you can create anything that this photo inspires! 

I have to admit that I didn't know what I was going to do for this challenge until I was checking out Studio L3's Grungy Monday post. There challenge is to use Tim Holtz's Alcohol Ink "plaid technique" and they're giving away a GC from Simon Says Stamp. I did mine with a piece of Acetate packaging from my new Suitcase Sizzix die that I just got! eeeek! Love that one! Anyway, I found that doing the lines one way on one side of the acetate and then turning it over to do the opposite way worked better than doing it all on one side like you would if you were using glossy paper.  Ok, sorry, I'm totally rambling now! It's really late as I write this post and I think I might be a bit loopy! lol

Close Up:

Well there you have it! Don't forget to stop over to Frosted Designs and Creative Accents Challenges to see what the rest of the Amazingly talented DT's have to show you and don't forget to play along with us!!

Challenges: Simon Says Stamp and Show: Anything Goes

Crafter's Companion: Spring

Crazy4Challenges: Spring

Deep Ocean Challenges: Butterflies

Ladybug Crafts Ink: Anything Goes

Lindy's Stamp Gang: Spring Fling

Happy Crafting!!

Stuck?!

Hellooo all! Just a quick post to show you a layout I made a few days ago. I found this really fabulous sketch blog called Stuck Sketches and I honestly can't remember how I wandered into this site, but I'm glad I did! Isn't this a great sketch?!

Anyhoo, this is the layout I made with the sketch. These pictures were taken last summer when we went camping. I just love Caleb's smile!!

Here's some close ups:

I don't tend to use banners a lot and I really tried to resist them when they first started to hit the crafty scene,  but now I kinda think I might finally be on the "banner bandwagon"! I'm kinda loving this one!

Speaking of scrappy things I love lately...how awesome is this paper?! It's the new echo park, which happens to go wonderfully with the new MME! Yay! 

Well, there you have it for now :) Stay tuned for another Fabulous Friday challenge from Frosted Designs coming tomorrow!

Holy Late Post Batman (and a freeeebeee!!)

Well I was supposed to have this card made for the 5th of March (I'm like 2 days late! Sorry Cheri!!) I guess better late than never though eh?! 

It's time for another fabulous sketch challenge from Graphicat Sketches and you're definitely going to want to play along with us this time, because EVERYONE who does will get a FREE DIGI from Graphicat Designs!!!! So I won't chatter on forever so you can get going and get creating!!

Here's the sketch:

 And here's my card: 

And here's what happens when I haven't cleaned up in between projects! Yikes!!

Well there ya go! Get out your crafty supplies and start playing along! EVERYONE WINS!! Who doesn't want free stuff?! Specially a Graphicat Digi! You have until March 18th to link up!!

Supplies: Patterned Paper: Graphic 45. Cardstock: Bazzil and Coredinations. Inks and Paints: Distress Ink and Distress Rock Candy Crackle Paint, and Adirondak Alcohol inks. Bling: Kaiser Craft, Metal Pretties: Tim Holtz (flower, unknown). Brads: Close to My Heart. Dies: Lifestyle Crafts.  Embossing Powder from Creative Accents.

First Frosted Designs Layout!!!

Hello everyone! It's time for a "Fabulous Friday" Challenge over at Frosted Designs and it's my first time as a part of their design team! I'm so excited to be a part of such a huge group of super talented people! 

This week's challenge is "Numbers" any way, any how! 

Here's my layout:

I used my Cameo to cut out this fabulous number background and the scallop circle...

The tags are from my new CTMH stamp set "Vintage Type"(lovin this one!)

I used Graphic 45 papers and buttons (They're our sponsor this week!!! woohoo!! who doesn't want to win some G45 swag?!?!)

The title was made with various letter stickers and again the "Vintage Type" CTMH stamp set

Thanks for taking a look and don't forget to head over to the Frosted Designs blog for some fabulous inspiration and to link up your Numbers project!!!

Supplies: Patterned Paper: Graphic 45, Basic Grey, MME, Crate Paper, and Tim Holtz. Cardstock: Bazzil. stickers: Basic Grey, Cosmo Cricket and Crate Paper. Stamps: CTMH. Die Cutting Machines: Cameo and Vagabond (mini rosette die Sizzix). Brads: CTMH. Ink: Memento and Distress, and Lindy's Stamp Gang. Tape:??? Ribbon: Pink Paislee Mistables.  Tools: Prima distress tool, tiny attacher and texture hammer by Tim Holtz.